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I first saw Twelfth Night at the Globe two years ago, when Mark Rylance played Olivia and I thought nothing could beat that production. But I was wrong. Declan Donellan's Cheek by Jowl production at the Barbican as part of its Bite 06 Series, has blown my Globe experience out of the water and set a new benchmark in expertly executed Shakespeare.
Donellan's Twelfth Night is in Russian and uses an all male cast, significant components that should make it utterly obscure and inaccessible, but actually succeed, in bringing the play alive with a freshness and exuberance that will reinvigorate your love of theatre.
Although performed by an outstanding troupe of Moscow based actors, their derring do is accompanied by English surtitles. These are a useless distraction and flash up only the barest plot points. So just forget them. The real action lies below with the actors and once you have worked this out, you are free to be drawn into this spectacular rendering of one of Shakespeare's best loved comedies.
Five star reviews have followed this production like rats after the pied piper, such is its effect on the audience, with its scintillating performances and brilliant direction all set against Nick Ormerod's simplistic but effective set with it's plain drapes and carefully chosen props.
Twelfth Night is the provenance of the infamous "if music be the food of love" quote and the Salsa rhythms and Buena Vista Social Club feel to all the chorus' musical interludes render them thoroughly uplifting, not least in the final scene, where the whole cast dance and sing in a jubilant celebration of the fact that despite the odds the siblings are reunited and boy gets girl. (Or boy in this case, it being a unisex cast.)
Dealing with the essential truths and universal themes of love, deception, madness and sexuality, Twelfth Night is my favourite comedy, but for the uninitiated, this cross dressing farce begins when shipwrecked in Illyria and fearing her brother dead, Viola played by Andrey Kuzichev, transforms herself into a manservant known as Cesario to try to win favour with Orsino Count of Illyria's, who is already besotted with Olivia, who in turn ends up falling for Cesario and so flows a tale of deception, misdirected desire, mistaken identities, revenge and thwarted love.
Alexey Dadonov is stunning as Olivia as is Dmitry Shcherbina, who play's Malvolio, Olivia's manservant; no more so than when he picks up a love letter he believes is from his mistress. This scene in Olivia's garden were the conspiratorial troupe hide and listen to Malvolio dream of his marriage to Olivia is utterly priceless and laugh-out-loud funny. As is Malvolio confronting Olivia with his yellow stockings and huge grin after reading her letter.
Dmitry Diuzhev, is also a smash hit as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and although his duel with Viola is a bit OTT - he comes out dressed as a WWF wrestler, complete with Kung Fu moves - the rest of the acting is absolutely spot on.
Sir Toby (Alexander Fekklistov) is a perfect construction of the drunk, wealthy, oligarch who is in cahoots with the hoity maidservant Maria. Both play their roles to huge comic effect and whether they are drunk and partying, or concocting a wicked wheeze to dupe Malvolio, they will have you reeling with laughter and left with an indelible smile on your face.
This year marks the first of three annual seasons of Cheek by Jowl at the Barbican. The company, who celebrates its quarter century this year, is set to produce two pieces a year at the venue, one in English and one in Russian, and after having seen their Twelfth Night, I am happily anticipating what I am sure will be further works of theatrical genius.
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